1. Field of Art
The present disclosure generally relates to the field of undercover operations and more specifically to gathering situational information from an informant.
2. Background of the Invention
Police officers and other agents often use informants to aid in conducting investigations in the field during the course of their duties. For example, an officer conducting an undercover sting in a high-risk situation may rely on an informant to provide key information relative to an objective or other target. A support team may monitor the informant directly in the field and interface with administration at an agency, however, these operations are often not feasible for day to day activities.
Another option to perform some degree of monitoring of an informant is to obtain a consensual wiretap on the informant's phone through a cellular carrier. The cellular carrier records calls placed to and originating from the informant's phone and passes the completed recordings to the support team. However, the cost of a consensual wiretap may run in excess of $6,000 per month and thus prevents the utilization of consensual wiretapping through cellular carriers for all but highest priority cases. Additionally, the support team may not receive the recorded data in real time, thus delaying the supports team's response time to urgent situations involving the informant. Further, the consensual wiretapping process from the carrier may only monitor call audio on the informant's device.